


An Ohana Christmas Eve

by ThatwasJustaDream



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: 1-million-words, Holiday Fic Exchange, Multi, Ohana
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 08:22:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13027062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatwasJustaDream/pseuds/ThatwasJustaDream
Summary: Written as a Swap of Joy gift: The extended H50 ohana celebrates the holidays- and get the best gift ever: Everyone well, happy, and under one roof inside "McDanno's Italiano"





	An Ohana Christmas Eve

**Author's Note:**

  * For [simplyn2deep](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyn2deep/gifts).



Steve saw the sign on the restaurant door from ten steps away, and how could it not make him smile? It was written on cardboard that had been torn from the box their produce arrived in. The lettering on it was in crayon and marker in a big, loose, print that was clearly Charlie’s - with some help from sister Grace. Steve could picture her guiding Charlie’s hand as he formed each one, then helping him tape the whole thing to the door. 

 _CLOSED_  
_Ohana-Only Party._  
_Sorry, come back tomorrow!_  
  
They’d hung it from a string and used about fifteen long pieces of scotch tape to plaster it all in place, but its grip on the glass, halfway down the door at Charlie’s height seemed precarious with the heft of the cardboard. Steve pressed it all down tighter, unconsciously kissing his own fingertips and running them over the words as he walked in. 

“Nice job out there: An excellent heads-up for any walk-ins we might have…” He stopped at the table where four of them sat - Danny, Grace and Charlie folding cloth napkins and sliding them into holders shaped like cranes, little Joanie in a high chair alternating between eating the pile of cheerios on her tray and flinging them on the floor. “I especially like the ‘Come back tomorrow’ part. You’re thinking like a sales person, sweetie, planting the idea of coming back in the customers’ heads.”  
  
“Actually,” Grace shrugged his hand away as Steve ruffled her hair; she combed it back in place, and oh, lord, she was getting to be like Danny already with the hair. “It wasn’t my idea, it was…”

“Sure it was. It was all your idea,” Danny jumped in. “It’s a good one, and you should take credit for it. Who else in the world would come up with an amazing idea like that one except you?”

“I don’t know,” Grace shrugged. “Maybe my _dad_ , who’s still freaking out every single night, convinced ‘The Streak’ will end and no one will want to eat here again, ever, starting tomorrow.”

“You should appreciate having a father who’s a worrier,” Danny added his crane to the small but growing pile of napkins at the far end of the table. “Not to mention one who bothers to verbalize things. Do you know the only three things my father ever said to me on a regular basis the whole time I was growing up? ‘Do your homework,’ ‘listen to your mother,’ and ‘get the hell out of my way.’ None of which did a damn thing to get me ready for life.”

Grace was taking Danny’s rolling commentary in the spirit intended; giggling at what was clearly an exaggeration on his part, and at Danny’s attempt to shrug off what she’d said about him fretting.

Steve left her to go sit by Danny as he rambled; gave him a shoulder bump and slid an arm around his waist. Danny had really taken every month of their joint enterprise kind of hard: Seemed to both love and hate the process, and the uncertainty that couldn’t be avoided owning McDanno’s Italiano. Steve had made it his mission to coax him through the rough spots and help him fully enjoy the good days.

Happily, there had been more good than bad in this past twenty-one months, even though they were still running 5-0 and using their nonexistent spare time to manage the place.

“I smell so many delicious things,” Steve glanced toward the kitchen door to their right. “Garlic…onion…celery… cinnamon….”

“The prep crew has been at it for an hour,” Danny said. “Maybe we should go check their progress. You all right keeping at these, Grace?”

“Yah. It might take a while,” she looked at Charlie, who was valiantly trying to fold his pile of napkins, but was mostly having to start over and over and never quite achieving a finished specimen of his own. “But we’ll get there.”

“Thanks, sweetie - I mostly want his little feet far away from the kitchen and all those hot pots and pans, okay?”

Charlie was turning into a dynamo: Looking more like Danny’s ‘mini-me’ every day, a blond mop-top racing around and into everything - too much for his mother in her smaller, post-divorce house with a lot on her own plate these days.

Charlie ended up with them more nights and weekends than not, lately, and Steve couldn’t help notice that was one thing in their lives Danny sure as hell wasn’t complaining about.

-*-

“Chop, chop,” Danny said; saw Tani shoot him a rueful look as she and Jerry stood at the center island prepping vegetables and dicing onions and celery for their third batch of red sauce.

“You’re preaching to the choir,” Mary told him, nodding toward the two of them from the far end of the kitchen, rolling out pie dough. “Between that mountain of produce and the apples and strawberry and rhubarb for the pies… I think they’re about chopped out." 

“How about I pitch in, then?” Danny headed for the sink to wash his hands.

“I hope we went big enough with the main course,” Steve was opening the stove, pulling out the heavy rack to check on the two huge pans of lasagna already cooking. “Between these and the Penne a la Vodka… we should be good to feed eighteen, yes?”

“It’s twenty one, now,” Tani corrected. “Both of Lou’s kids are coming after all, and …my brother. Much to my surprise.”

“Well that’s great,” Steve shut the oven and tossed the oven mitts. “The more the merrier.”

“Actually,” Jerry looked at Tani, who gave him a ‘yeah, go for it’ nod. “Junior stopped by a few minutes ago. He dropped off those bottles of wine as a donation, so you won’t have to raid the company stock. While he was here, he mentioned that there are several other veterans he knows are still living at the shelter, and …. he kind of wondered…”

“How many are several?” Danny asked, not slowing down on dicing celery.

“Four,” Jerry said.

“Dinner for twenty five?” Steve stepped behind Danny, laying a palm against his back to calm him.

He knew Danny was already jumpy about the size of the party - between family members of the team and Steve and Danny’s friends and their friends’ families, it was almost like cooking for a very full restaurant. A nice problem to have, Danny had conceded. 

“Dinner for twenty five,” he said, now. “Yes.”

“Here’s the thing,” Jerry said, “Junior kind of didn’t want to go there and ask ‘em over, mostly because it’s pretty slim pickings at the shelter: sandwiches and fruit, you know? Not lasagna and penne and salad, and pies for desert and…. there are, like, twenty other people staying there tonight, so….”

“Dinner for forty five?” Danny looked up behind himself at Steve: Didn’t so much _say_ it as ask it in a vaguely stressed tone.

“Let’s do it,” Steve smiled down at him, giving a little press against him with his hips and noticing Danny bite his lower lip in reaction. “We can do that, right? It’s barely ten a.m. and look how far we’ve come already. We can make it happen, no problem.”

“Dudes, thanks,” Jerry hit the sink; rinsing off the onion juice and grabbing a towel. “My idea… so I’ll go buy the extra food we’ll need. And I’ll let Junior know to tell the shelter we’ll be coming by with dinner later.”

“I’ll text you a list,” Danny said to a rapidly exiting Jerry, who clearly was getting to his car before anyone changed their minds. “In case you need to know exactly how much of everything you’ll actually require for four lasagnas and a ginormous pan of penne. Oh, and salads and...another batch of meatball soup…..”

Danny went in search of his phone in the dining room, and Steve turned his attention to collecting a hug from his sister. Usually she would have dropped her things at the house first but she’d headed straight to the restaurant from the airport this morning to pitch in.

“You look well,” Mary told him, patting Steve’s cheek with the back of a floury hand. “I’m relieved to see that.”

“Of course I look well. I _am_ well. Does no one believe me when I say that? I mean… it’s been years now and I think I’ve been pretty clear and honest about how I’m faring,” Steve could feel indignation making him ramble. “…it’s not like I’m hiding anything or leaving the room to have radioactive coughing fits or….”

“Hmmm…” Mary said.

“Hmmm, what?”

“It is true: Old married couples do get to be more like each other all the time.”

“Stop it,” Steve said, with half a glance back toward Tani.

He had told his sister about Danny’s latest breakup last summer, which had led to Steve’s latest breakup a month later as the two of them decided to make their partnership both professional and personal.

They’d told Lou also, since he felt like family. But although they really liked their new team members, Danny had wanted to keep it to their inner circle for a few months - long enough to make sure living together 24/7 didn’t drive either of them, in Danny’s words, “batshit crazy.”

“Does Danny know about your grand plan for the new year?” Mary asked it in a low tone of voice and Steve shrugged.

“Not yet. I thought I’d wait ’till after tonight to talk with him about it. We’ve both been so busy….”

“Have you considered that the sooner you stop stalling and talk about it…the sooner you might not be so insanely busy?” Mary gave him an actual elbow nudge as Danny returned and resumed chopping duties. “Hey Tani, can you help me with the pies? Maybe …Steve you could work with Danny on the rest of the veggies.”

Tani didn’t seem to notice any motive in the prep-team switch-up, but Steve saw the question marks in Danny’s eyes, for sure.

“What?” Steve said.

“Is that your plan? Put me off by leading with a question?”

“Put you off from what?”

“I saw all that nudging going on back there,” Danny imitated Mary’s elbow-toss, rolling his eyes at Steve’s ‘ouch’ “And I know she didn’t really call Tani over to help roll out pie shells, so…what’s up?”

“Do you have to be a detective all the time, Danny?”

“Pretty much, yes. For a couple of years more, probably….”

“That’s actually what I’ve been wanting to talk with you about. When we opened the restaurant it was so we could retire. Wasn’t it? Now … you’re the one who keeps pushing the date for that back and back and….”

“Four years, Steven. That’s how long it takes most small businesses to turn a profit. We’re two years in, right? Everyone told us not to open a restaurant, everyone said it’s a money-suck and maybe they were right but I love it and I don’t want us to lose it not to mention everything we’ve invested. If two more years is what it’ll take then…”

“Here’s the thing, Danny, I don’t think it has to. I’ve got money saved - enough to get us through a year, at least. And if it takes another year… I could always rent my house out and we can live in yours. Think what I can make a month renting the beach house if….”

“No. No way, uh-uh…nope. I am not asking you, after all you’ve done, to….”

“You _didn’t_ ask,” Steve put a hand around Danny’s wrist, pressing to make him stop. “I offered.”

“Babe, remember all those times years ago when we picked on you for being cheap?”

“Sure.”

“I wish I could go there and take it all back.”

“Hey. There’s no one I’d rather invest it in. Look, I know it’s been a challenging few months. I get that you thought this place would zoom to profitability instead of just growing slow and steadily, but….” Steve glanced back to confirm his sister and Tani were occupied and chatting and they didn’t have an audience. “Hey, we’re breaking even. Right? And I know you hoped Rachel would give you full custody of Charlie and Grace, but that’s got to be a rough decision for her to make, isn’t it? She hasn’t said no yet.”

“So this retirement thing… when are you thinking we pull the trigger?”

“Right after the holiday,” Steve chose to keep moving forward, not get hung up on Danny wanting to blow right past any convo about the kids. “Thursday will be the second of the month - our first work day back, and we inform the governor then.”

“Oh…geez. You’re really not kidding, are you?”

“This could be our year, Danny. What if it all works out - the restaurant, the kids with us full time? I think we should do everything we can to make sure it's our year.”

-*- 

As challenging as the day started out looking to be, when things got on a roll they took off fast. It helped that two of the four people Junior brought along with him had prior restaurant experience, and the others were up for packing the food prepared for the shelter into boxes and taxiing them to the location.

By Noon, everything was in place; they’d even had a spare hour and a half to run home, drop Mary’s things at the house, and for everyone to spiff up for the party.

“As long as I’ve lived here, I’m still not used to an eighty degree day on Christmas,” Jerry said.

He and Kamekona were standing by the bar Steve had set up, drinking punch and watching Steve take orders for drinks from his guests.

“Bra, where you from? Wisconsin, right?”

“Originally, yeah,” Jerry shrugged. “You’d think, though, after all these years…”

“You got snow up there, we got sand. You hafta take off your boots before you go in the house, and we leave the slippahs on the porch steps. It’s not so different, really. Is it?”

“Good point. And I don’t miss freezing half the year. Would be nice to make a snowman, though.”

“Or an ice sculpture,” Kamekonah nodded. “Someday, I wanna go to a wintry place, and see one of those ice sculpture competitions. I bet I could carve up a hell of a shrimp truck sculpture. Probably take first place.”

“Well look who’s here,” Jerry headed for the front door, where a small crowd was gathering to hug Chin and Abby. “I thought their flight in from California was later on?”

“Chin, brother,” Steve called over to them. “Come get a drink.”

“On my way,” Chin shouted back. “Never have I ever gone so far for Christmas dinner, McGarrett….but the place is looking amazing!”

The new arrivals made an already festive afternoon brighter; the room buzzing with conversation, people catching up, the kids all playing together, food and stories and jokes going around. But the happy hum turned to actual cheers when Adam got there, and then reached back through the door to pull Kono in behind him.

“No way, no way” Danny was there first, picking her up off her feet and collecting a bear hug. “I don’t believe it! Are you staying? Are you home?”

“No, unfortunately,” Kono hugged him back, Chin and Abby walking up right behind him for their turn. “I only have a couple of days…and I wasn’t sure I would even make it, so I didn’t want to tell anyone and then have to disappoint.”

Everyone agreed later that the best present they got all year was everyone happy, well, and in the same room together. And the new team meeting the old team was the icing on the gingerbread men.

  

-*-

 

E pule kakou  
‘Auhea ‘oe e ka Makua Lani  
Eia makou kau po’e kaua, ke mililani aku nei ia oe  
Ke nonoi a’e nei ia oe e ho’opomaikai  
i keia mea’ai e ola ai ko makou mau kino..

" _Dear heavenly father, we your humble servants come before you to give thanks. We ask that you bless this food for the nourishment of our bodies and bless the hands that prepared it. Bless us all well.”_

Kono gave the blessing in Hawaiian, Chin echoing her words in English for the guests not versed in the language, and the true feasting began.

It wasn’t the first holiday dinner they’d shared at Steve and Danny’s place, but something about it felt particularly memorable and full of good spirits. Maybe it was everyone being together again, or as simple as the restaurant having made it through its second year; it felt like a home away from home, now, with shared memories around each of the tables for them all.

“This is good, right?” Steve leaned in to ask it right in Danny’s ear; to plant a quick kiss there, too. “This is fun, isn’t it?”

“You know it is,” Danny gave him a little kick under the table, looking around as the their friends broke into several conversations. “I hope you understand… even when it seems like I’m not having fun in this place…. I still really am. Does that make sense?”

“From anyone else it wouldn’t, but…yeah. I get it. I’m glad. There’s nothing I want more than you to be happy, Danny.”

“And what about you? Are you happy with this life we’re building?”

“Let’s put it this way… I’ve got everything I could ever want and it’s all here in this room. What do you think?”

There was some talk about maybe a sing-a-long and music after dinner and before dessert - but the food was delicious and the wine was flowing. When Danny’s phone rang on the table in front of them, Steve glanced at his watch and realized it was already after seven p.m.

“It’s the former Mrs. Daniel Williams,” Danny said, waving the phone as he stood to leave the room with it. “Calling from England. I’ll take it in the kitchen.”

Steve got sidetracked talking with Chin and Abby, and it took a few minutes to realize that Danny wasn’t back - and neither Grace nor Charlie had gone in to talk with their mom.

He excused himself and walked over to the kitchen; thought about turning away again when he saw Danny standing there with one hand in his hair and the other on the phone, still deep in quiet conversation with Rachel. But then, as he was about to go, Steve saw him hang up.

“You all right?” he stepped further into the kitchen, stopping in front of Danny. “You look…shaken, buddy. What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s… there’s nothing wrong. It’s all good, I just…” Danny took the hand Steve offered him, flipping the phone in his other hand into his pants pocket. “I need a second to digest that. Not the food, the… what she called about.”

“Danny, you’re scaring me, here, what did she…”

“Rachel met someone in England.”

“Over Christmas vacation? Are you serious?”

“No. Months ago, when she went home to visit her family last summer. He’s been coming here, she’s been Skypeing with him and… she found a job. She’s moving home, Steve. She’s moving to London to work for a big travel firm and marry the guy and…”

“Don’t … don’t tell me she thinks she’s taking the kids with her?”

“No. She doesn’t. That’d be the thing I’m digesting. She just told me she’s giving us full custody. Well… me, full custody. You… can be named a legal guardian so that as their step-father you can have rights if, say, anything goes wrong and…”

“Danny, are you kidding?” Steve shook him lightly, as if to wake him and he watched Danny visibly brighten and rouse himself, a smile finally on his face like he was finally arriving back in the room again.

“I know. I should be jumping up and down, but I … I can’t quite believe it. Can you?”

“Sure I can,” Steve got arms around him and squeezed. “I _told_ you, it’s going to be our year.”

“Oh,” Danny pulled away, eyes going to Steve’s, and there was some of the worry back. “What about Grace? Charlie…it’ll just be the norm for him but…she’s at an age …how’s she gonna feel about…”

“Don’t worry,” they heard Grace and turned to see her standing behind them in the kitchen doorway. “It was my idea.”

“Sweetie….” Danny went to her; hand on her shoulder, eyes scanning to make sure it was the truth. “Why?”

“She’ll always be our mom, but… I told her we can’t take any more moving around. I don’t want to split time between there and here; I want a home before I’m done high school and going away to college and…I feel like it’s here with you two. I want our family to be Charlie’s family and… I think she understands.”

Steve needed to give them a moment. He kissed Danny and Grace each on the head on the way to the dining room, and stood watching the party, breathing back his own emotions.

“Everything all right in there?” Mary came by to ask him.

“It’s great. Everything is great. I think… Mary, I think Danny and I just got our ‘happily ever after.’”

-*-

The party didn’t break up for hours, but eventually cabs were called and people started saying good night. The time came when even Mary left, driving the kids to Steve’s to get some sleep - and then it was just them; Chin and Abby, Kono and Adam, Steve and Danny.

“So correct me if I’m wrong,” Steve said to Chin over coffee and one more slice of pie. “But it sounds like there’s no way we’re luring you two back from San Fran?”

“You’d be right on that one,” Chin told him. “It’s not somewhere I ever expected to love as much as I do, but… we’re home, for now. We did decide to keep renting my house here instead of selling, so that when it comes time to retire….”

“Awesome,” Danny threw him a salute with his dessert fork in his hand. “We can all get old and grey together.”

“Some of us are getting grey already,” Kono ran a finger over Steve’s temple from where she sat at his right, collecting a smack on the hand for her teasing. “You two aren’t retiring from the force anytime soon, are you? Or… are you?”

Maybe it was the look on Danny’s face that tipped her off; Danny looked at Steve, who gave him a nod.

“We’ve decided to, yes,” Danny said. “We haven’t told the new kids yet, but we’re letting the powers that be know in January. We’ll probably hang up our holsters and vests in April and…”

“Oh…” Kono looked so disappointed, Danny stopped short. “ I was hoping to maybe work with you again. I couldn’t tell everyone earlier, but…for our ears only, my efforts with the undercover team are only a few weeks away from wrapping up. We expect to make five high-profile arrests and…I’m out. Any chance I can convince you to stay? So we can be a team again?”

“No, we’re set on it. We’re ready for what comes next,” Steve said. “But…. I know for a fact Lou doesn’t want the added pressure of being commander. And the team needs someone with solid experience so…. can I interest you in a promotion, maybe?”

“Maybe,” Kono acknowledged the hand Steve was holding out, but didn’t reach to take it, yet. “What’s the rule on fraternization, though? Can the boss name her second, even if her second is her husband?”

“Rules?” Steve kept his hand out. “When in the hell have we ever stuck to the rules?”

Which is how they shook on it, and Kono became the next head of 5-0.

-*-

“Remember that day?” Danny asked him, walking from the bathroom toward Steve’s bed in his sleep shorts. “The day we went all over town scouting up our team? We drove until you found Chin and then Kono.”

“I remember it like yesterday,” Steve set the file full of invoices and ‘to do’ lists from the restaurant on his nightstand and reached for Danny’s hand, pulling him into bed. “It feels like yesterday. As I recall… you tried to hit on Kono.”

“Not really.”

“Sort of really.”

“Okay, sort of really. Did you ever think we’d….”

“No,” Steve said, hitting the light and pulling him in, flipping over to be the big spoon tonight. “I sure didn’t. But you know what? I do it all over again, if I could.”

“Not all of it,” Danny said in the dark. “Not all of it by a long shot, buddy.”

“I hear you. But building our future? Getting to build the actual family I thought I’d never have? If you ever wonder on the bad days, Daniel, please know I’d happily do it all over again.”

“Me too,” Danny kissed the arm Steve had slid under his neck and settled in. “’Night, ‘animal.’" 

“’Night, Danno.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
